Analysis: Will cohort flip in Hernandez murder case?

Jul. 30, 2013
|

Prosecutors believe Ernest Wallace, shown here as he arrives for a hearing last week in Attleboro, Mass., is the key to answering two key questions in the prosecution's murder case against former New England Patriot Aaron Hernandez: What happened to the murder weapon and who fired the shots that killed Odin Lloyd? On the night of the killing, Wallace was with Hernandez, who has pleaded not guilty in the killing of Lloyd, a semi-pro football player whose body was found June 17 in an industrial park about a mile from Hernandez's home. / Ted Fitzgerald, AP

by Kevin Manahan, USA TODAY Sports

by Kevin Manahan, USA TODAY Sports

ATTLEBORO, MASS. -- There are two glaring holes in the prosecution's murder case against Aaron Hernandez: They haven't found the .45 caliber Glock handgun used to kill Odin Lloyd, nor do search warrant affidavits in the case indicate they have an eyewitness who says Hernandez fired the fatal shots.

Prosecutors believe Ernest Wallace is the key to both.

If alleged accomplice Carlos Ortiz's story, as outlined in affidavits, is to be believed, Wallace got out of the car with Hernandez and Lloyd in the early morning darkness of an industrial park where Lloyd was killed on June 17.

According to those documents, Ortiz told police he couldn't see who fired the shots, but he says Wallace told him the next day Hernandez was the killer.

But there's no indication in the record that Wallace has told investigators who fired the shots.

With police searching a pond in Bristol, Conn., for two days this week, it's clear they believe Wallace, in his flight after the murder, could have disposed of the murder weapon.

With Ortiz, who is charged only with possession of an illegal firearm, already talking to investigators, the question is whether prosecutors can get Wallace to tell the same story to them that he supposedly told to Ortiz.

That may be unlikely, experts say, unless prosecutors hit Wallace with more serious charges. Wallace has pleaded not guilty to being an accessory after the fact and is being held on $500,000 cash bail. So far, he has remained loyal to Hernandez, who had been paying his bills, according to prosecutors.

"If Hernandez has been his sugar daddy, that charge probably isn't enough to get him to talk," said Gerry Leone, a former district attorney in Middlesex (Mass.) County who is a partner at Nixon Peabody in Boston.

In his presentation requesting $1 million bail for Wallace, assistant district attorney William McCauley described the 41-year-old Wallace as a career criminal who used four aliases and was Hernandez's bodyguard and "right-hand man." Hernandez stashed Wallace in a Franklin, Mass., apartment and was the sole source of support for the unemployed Wallace, providing him with cash, food and rental cars, McCauley said.

In his argument for a lower bail for Wallace, defense attorney David Meier pointed his finger at Ortiz as the possible shooter, never mentioning Hernandez. That was an indication of how the teams are forming, at least for now: Hernandez and Wallace against Ortiz, the teary-eyed defendant who is being call a "snitch" by his former friends.

Still, Leone said, "there's always a chance of those other than the shooter cooperating. Prosecutors will want to get the shooter, who appears to be Hernandez, and if you have a hole in the evidence and Wallace can close it, you make a deal. But right now, what they have (Wallace) on probably isn't enough to get him to turn on a friend."

Leone added: "But I don't think you've seen the last shoe drop on Hernandez or the people he was associated with. They'll find other criminal acts, and suddenly people who are jammed up in those cases will start talking.

"It'll be, 'Geez, now I'm jammed up in this case. I didn't expect to get jammed up, so what do I have to give you to get out of this jam? What if I give you something on Hernandez?'

"All of a sudden, guys' memories get real good."

Leone believes that's why investigators, in addition to probing a 2012 double homicide in Boston, are probably re-examining unsolved shootings in Florida â?? where Wallace is from, where Hernandez went to school and where Hernandez allegedly shot a man in the eye.

"You find out that one of Hernandez's guys, like Wallace, were in the area where there was a shooting and you look at it again," Leone said. "These (homicide detectives) are good. They do this for a living."

If investigators can link Hernandez to the Boston killings, they'll most certainly try to determine whether Wallace was involved.

According to a civil lawsuit filed against Hernandez by Alexander Bradley â?? who says Hernandez shot him in the eye in February in Florida â?? there were two other individuals in the car. When asked by USA TODAY Sports whether Bradley has said Wallace was one of them,Bradley's attorney, David Jaroslawicz declined to say.

Prosecutors say Hernandez brought Wallace to Massachusetts to be around when Hernandez wanted, but Leone theorizes that perhaps the former New England Patriots tight end housed Wallace in that condo to keep an eye on him, and to make sure he didn't talk.

Leone said he expects the two grand juries â?? in Boston and Fall River â?? to hand down indictments soon, not just for Hernandez and his alleged accomplices but for new defendants, too. Witnesses for the two investigations might overlap.

"Let's see how this plays out," Leone said. "If they find more stuff on Wallace, loyalty could go out the window."